Anorexia Bordo Summary

Bordo starts off the article by discussing the general societal trends that could push women into having eating disorders such as anorexia. Western culture is obsessed with being thin and being fat is seen as the worst possible situation to be in. one reason for this is that the body is one of the easiest facets of someone’s life to control. One cannot control if their mail gets lost of if there is extra traffic on their way to work but one can control the amount of food they eat. Women impacted more with this obsession with thinness, which has to partly with the desire for control. Another reason, one of many, that women are impacted more is that the more time women spend on their appearance and being thin is less time they spend in intellectual pursuits which leaves the arena open for men. This has been a key component in maintaining the power disparity between men and women.
Bordo then goes on to discuss “axes of continuity.” There are three axes: “the dualist axis, the control axis and the gender/power axis”(4). These …show more content…
These two realms are the bodily and physical on one side and the mental and spiritual on the other side. This connects to anorexia because a person with anorexia sees their body as alien, as a limitation, and as their enemy. Bordo connects this back to Plato, Descartes, and Augustine who all also saw their bodies in this light. These famous philosophers where trying to gain control over the lusts of their bodies. These lusts included drinking and sexual desires. For people with anorexia the lust is hunger. Just as the philosophers wanted to go without indulging in the lusts of the body people with anorexia want to be able to live with having to eat. Both groups fear the lust and fear not being able to stop indulging in it if they start. In being thin people with anorexia feel as though they have beat their